James Wan 'gets revenge' for Aquaman fans with new film
Malaysia-born Australian filmmaker James Wan first cut his teeth in Hollywood helming hit horror franchises such as Saw, Insidious and The Conjuring.
The 41-year-old changed gears and tried his hand at the action genre with Fast & Furious 7 (2015) and now takes on the biggest project of his career, Aquaman.
In creating this world, what was the most important part for you to get right?
Probably that costume - Aquaman himself. That was definitely something we worked hard and long on, really trying to nail down how we could take the classic comic book look and translate that to the big screen.
Of course, it was (also) the overall world. I really wanted to capture the vibrancy of Atlantis and all the underwater kingdoms and do the comic book justice while, obviously, filtering it through my own sensibility and adapting it for the big screen.
What do you think Jason Momoa brought to the table?
What I think is so great with Jason playing this role, ultimately, was bringing his personality to this character - not bringing him to Aquaman but bringing Aquaman to him.
And what I love most about it is I got to be the one to showcase the other side of Jason Momoa that not many people have seen, which is the funny side of him.
And I think after this movie comes out, people are going to see what a great potential romantic lead he is as well.
With so many water effects in this movie, what were some challenges you ran into?
Well, you hear it all the time from film-makers that make movies with water: It is not the most pleasant thing. It is uncomfortable and it really slows down the film-making process.
The irony is all the sequences that are fully submerged in this underwater world - that was actually shot dry for wet.
And that is literally what it sounds like, which is we shot, as these actors have said, in these rigs that simulate swimming, floating, and how your body moves underwater. But we did play with a lot of water as well. I don't think you can make an Aquaman movie and actually not have anyone get wet.
When we were actually above the water - when we were dry - that was when I had to drench the actors non-stop. When they were actually out of the water, that was when they were dripping wet.
But I would say that the biggest water set we had was the submarine sequence at the beginning. That was a huge set piece; we built the submarine over a water tank and would just submerge it again and again.
As we played out the scene, we would submerge it and then take it back out of the water tank, blow dry it down and then do take two, and then take three.
What is the one thing you really hope people will take away from this film?
I want the fans to know that I am a fan myself. And for the fans out there who have stood by Aquaman all these years while people made fun of him... I want them to see that this is finally the opportunity to get revenge.
Get The New Paper on your phone with the free TNP app. Download from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store now
